If you’re travelling to Melbourne, then there’s one excursion not to be missed — Phillip Island. Just two hours south of the capital of Victoria, here you will find abundant wildlife in its natural environment. And don’t forget the penguins. Words by Katie Jacobs

Vietnamese who grew up in the 1980s like myself were taught in school textbooks that Vietnam has “golden forests and silver seas”. In other words, we were blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We were told that we should be proud of our green paddy fields, our plentiful fish in the ocean and the trees in our many forests.

As a girl who rarely travels anywhere — especially outside of Vietnam — being invited by Mekong Tourism to Kampot, Cambodia for the 9th World Congress of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World is something quite out there. Not only was I supposed to see one of “the most beautiful bays in the world” for the first time, I was supposed to shoot it in a way that matches its beauty. So I packed my bags, and jumped on a Sapaco bus to Phnom Penh at 6am with three cameras — my trusty DSLR, a small point-and-shoot and a Holga-like toy camera — and a tripod, to make sure I wouldn’t miss a thing.

We all know that travelling is mostly about who you meet. And the prime draw of visiting New York isn’t the tall buildings, theatres or pizza. It’s the 1,000 cultures that meet there, all building their kooky version of the American dream.